This post is chronologically before the Safari one, but I didn’t get a chance to write it then, so here it is now, completely out of order!

The ride from Nairobi to Arusha was only 2 days, but they were long. At least the one day I did was. lol.

The first day was 158 km I think, from Nairobi to just before the border crossing. We had a bunch of new people with us too, Heiner, Michel, Martyn, Sally-Anne, and Erma. It was fun riding with them the first day and chatting to new people. The 7 km of dirt we had that day elicited some complaints and minor mechanical problems… Hopefully the dirt post-Arusha went well for them… Perhaps Birgit and Leah’s guest post will address that! 🙂

The day was long but fun, and the camp was at a pretty nice place with a store, lukecold showers, etc.

The next day we crossed the border, and everyone had to ride to and across the border, since somewhere at the border they were going to be charged $250 per staff member so we all had to pretend (well, the staff had to pretend, and the rest of us couldn’t be mistaken as) staff members, so we all biked across the border. It went pretty quick considering all 50ish of us arrived at once. Sounds like the Tanzanian side had some scam going about trying to overcharge for the vehicle crossings and pocket the extra. Oh, and I rode to the border with Bina telling her about how I hadn’t gotten a flat since Sudan and got a flat in the 4 km ride to the border. Vunderbar.

On the other side, my vehicle raced ahead to flag the route, though we were delayed by the border crossing skimming off the top BS. Justin, Bina, eventually Hannah, and myself tried to find our way to the hotel in Arusha and got some bad directions from locals, so Alex (who’d been there before) and Wolfendave beat us there and officially tied for the race.

Sadly something happened with one of our riders in to Arusha, we’re not sure, but it probably involved getting hit or getting wind-blown by a vehicle, and he ended up in the ditch not remembering the accident with 6 broken ribs! 🙁 Peter went home after Arusha, just days after his wife left in Nairobi. Sad. 🙁 Hope you get better Peter!

We got some nice pictures of people as we went through though! Some are below.